The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences acknowledges Australia’s First Nations Peoples as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land and gives respect to the Elders – past and present – and through them to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that the MAAS website contains a range of material which may be culturally sensitive including records of people who may have passed away.

Tag: Sydney

August 29, 2019

Damian McDonald

Imagine being a working-class kid from Sydney’s suburbs, and the second car you ever bought was a Ferrari. But instead of being a rev-head, you were an aspiring rock muso. And the Ferrari was not a precision made, top-of-the-line spots car, but a Fender Stratocaster, with exactly the same specs as Formula One musos were using.

August 14, 2019

Keinton Butler

The Powerhouse Museum collection contains material relating to architecture and the built environment, of local, national and international significance. The collection includes scale models, design archives, plans, drawings, photography and interior fittings, with projects ranging from iconic buildings by award winning, internationally recognised Australian architects Glenn Murcutt, Harry Seidler and John Andrews, to social housing and civic projects of public interest. Architectural models form an important part of the architecture and built environment collection, and the Museum has many fine examples of conceptual, working, and large-scale presentation models that illustrate this craft.

June 25, 2019

Anni Turnbull

Like many suburbs of Sydney, Pyrmont and Ultimo have undergone significant changes during the last two hundred years. It’s hard to imagine the current peninsula filled with the sounds of quarrying, smoke from iron works and power stations and sweet smells from Colonial Sugar Refinery (CSR).

May 23, 2019

Damian McDonald

On my recent visit to the Sydney Jewish Museum to experience the exhibition Jukebox Jewkbox! A Century on Shellac and Vinyl I was interested in how the Sydney Jewish Museum has explored the technology of recorded music.

May 21, 2019

Damian McDonald

I recently had the privilege of seeing the exhibition Jukebox Jewkbox! A Century on Shellac and Vinyl at the Sydney Jewish Museum in Darlinghurst. The exhibition explores the phenomenon of mass-produced music, performance and comedy on the mediums of shellac and vinyl, and the enormous part Jewish people have played, and continue to play in the industry.

March 19, 2019

Anni Turnbull

At 87 years old the Sydney Harbour Bridge continues to be admired by artists. During its construction it was documented by photographers such as Harold Cazneaux and painters like Grace Cossington Smith.

November 7, 2018

Matthew Connell

The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences has just launched a new publication, Time and Memory, the second in the MAAS collection series which is supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund. In his introductory essay ‘The Shape of Time’, Principal Curator Matthew Connell places the Museum’s collection within the context of humanity’s understanding and experience of time, and our relationship with memory.

June 5, 2018

January 31, 2018

Sarah Reeves

On Wednesday 31 January, 2018, Australia and New Zealand will experience a total lunar eclipse. This occurs when the moon moves completely into the Earth’s shadow, blocking out the Sun’s light, and plunging the moon into darkness.

November 15, 2017

Damian McDonald

In 2004, the Liberal government under John Howard rushed legislation into parliament which changed the definition of marriage in Australia. The 2004 amendments are:
5 (1) marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.

August 21, 2017

Margaret Simpson

On 20 August 2017 it was the 160th anniversary of New South Wales' worst maritime disaster, the sinking of the 'Dunbar'. On a pitch-dark rainy night with a gale blowing a total of 121 passengers and crew of the sailing ship, 'Dunbar', lost their lives not long after midnight.

August 18, 2017

Tilly Boleyn

Happy National Science Week and Sydney Science Festival everyone! This week my science colleagues have taken over the blog to give you a bit more of an understanding about who we are and what we do.
When people find out that I’m a science curator their next question is usually “so, what do you actually do?”.